The Legal Services Authorities across the country, under the aegis of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) and guidance of Justice U.U. Lalit, Executive Chairman, NALSA, organised the second National Lok Adalat in the year 2021 on Saturday.
The Lok Adalat was organised in both virtual and hybrid mode and was held in 32 State Legal Service Authorities (SLSAs)/ High Court Legal Services Committees (HCLSCs) all across the country.
It was for the first time that Justice Lalit, Executive Chairman, NALSA himself monitored the working and functioning of Lok Adalats by way of virtual conferencing.
In addition, Justice Lalit interacted with Presiding Officers of Lok Adalat Benches in the Districts Courts of Fatehgarh Sahib (Punjab), Gurugram (Haryana), Panchkula (Haryana), Bharatpur (Rajasthan), Noida (Gautam Buddh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Thiruvellore (Tamil Nadu) and Kutch (Gujarat).
Justice Lalit further oversaw the working and functioning of Lok Adalat Benches at the High Court of Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati) and interacted with Judges, who were presiding over the Lok Adalat at the High Court of Rajasthan (Jodhpur).
Justice Lalit inquired about the type of cases taken up, disposal rates, and subject matter and laid emphasis on the aspect that National Lok Adalats are imperative to reduce the huge pendency in the justice system of the country.
Across the country, the latest data available till 4 pm indicates that in 5,129 number of National Lok Adalat Benches, 35,53,717 cases were taken up out of which 22,50,473 were pre-litigation cases and 13,03,244 were pending cases, stated a release of NALSA.
"Over 11,42,415 cases were disposed of in a single day July 10, 2021, indicating a huge achievement and success for the Legal Services Authorities. It was on account of the keen participation by the stakeholders that the Legal Services Authorities have been able to achieve this huge disposal," the release added.
In order to ensure maximum settlement between the parties in cases like MACT, matrimonial, cheque bounce cases under NI Act, labour disputes, PUS, other civil cases, it was stressed upon by the Executive Chairman of NALSA to conduct Pre-Lok Adalat sittings or pre-counselling sessions well before the National Lok Adalat so that the parties may get one or more chances for entering into dialogue with opposition parties to get the maximum number of settlements, NALSA said in its release.
It said that to prepare for the same and to maximise the outcome of the National Lok Adalat, a preparatory Webinar was organised by the NALSA. The "National Lok Adalat: Challenges and way forward" webinar was aimed at the goal of sensitizing all the Chairpersons and Secretaries of District Legal Services Authorities in order to ensure the smooth and proper functioning of the National Lok Adalat.
NALSA further directed the Legal Sevice Authorities (LSAs) to observe COVID-19 protocol prevalent in the States/UTs as per the guidelines issued by the government of India as well as State governments.
The National Lok Adalat has been postponed in Maharashtra, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Karnataka, and West Bengal for August 1, July 18, August 14 July 24 respectively. The next National Lok Adalat will be held on September 11, 2021.
( With inputs from ANI )
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